No One Saw This Coming
by Gigabomb
Summary: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Gai. Naruto becomes pregnant. With Kakashi's child. ... Yeah, they don't know how it happened either.
1. Conception

Author's Note: I hate m-preg. So I wrote this. ... Yeah. My mind works in mysterious ways. Chapter one of five.

It wasn't a scream, really. Naruto's voice had deepened too much after hitting puberty for it to be that. More like a howl of rage, if you wanted to be completely accurate. "What do you mean, _pregnant_?"

Tsunade sighed. "Exactly what I said. I'm not going to repeat myself."

Naruto's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Sakura, standing by the door, wasn't really handling it much better (after all, she had been the one to originally suggest Naruto come in to get something to help clear up his urinary infection, and look where that had led), but after four years of medical training her recovery time from such unexpected surprises was faster than her teammate's. "Um, Tsunade-sama… Naruto's a guy."

Tsunade rolled her eyes and started putting away her instruments. "Yes, I know that, Sakura."

Sakura blinked. She was beginning to think that something crucial had been overlooked during her years under the Godaime's tutelage. "Do men… usually get pregnant, Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade stared at her. "Sakura, I've trained you for four years. We covered pregnancy two years ago. Did I at any point mention that men can get pregnant?"

Sakura shook her head. Then she thought about it. "Wait… so if men can't get pregnant, how did Naruto…"

Tsunade sighed again and ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know yet." She turned to Naruto, who was staring blankly at the wall, still apparently in shock. His eyes only refocused after Tsunade snapped her fingers in his face a few times.

Then he started to babble again. "But… I… but… pregnant?"

Tsunade nodded. "Yes, Naruto. Now, this isn't exactly a usual case," understatement of the year, but no need to unduly alarm him, "So I need to ask you a few questions to determine how… your condition came about."

Presented with the possibility of solving this unexpected dilemma, Naruto nodded back resolutely. "Alright. Fire away, Granny!"

At that, Tsunade walked over to her desk and pulled a clipboard and pen out of one of its many drawers. "First question: Is the Kyuubi female?"

Naruto stared at her. "What? No! His voice is all deep and creepy and shit when I talk to him. Besides that, his balls are-"

"Naruto! We don't need to know that!"

Tsunade scribbled something on the clipboard. "Guess that rules out this being the demon's kid, then. Okay, second question: Have you been engaging in any particularly kinky sex with the Uchiha lately? Such as… I don't know, letting him fuck you while you were using your sexy no jutsu?"

Naruto abruptly started choking. In the end, it was Sakura who cleared her throat and said softly, "Um, Tsunade-sama, the sexy no jutsu is just a variation on henge. I don't think it'd result in Naruto getting pregnant."

After coughing up half a lung, Naruto nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that's right, Granny! Besides, we never do anything like that! If guys could get pregnant, it'd be Sasuke full of baby right now, not me. He's the one who always takes it up the ass!"

Now it was Tsunade and Sakura who were staring. In the end, the only option either of them could see before them that would end with both of them being sane was ignoring the fact that Naruto had ever opened his mouth, Tsunade muttering under her breath about that option leading no where too and Sakura covering her face with her hands and trying to think of unicorns.

A few more questions were asked, involving the possibility of this being a mass genjutsu placed on them for some nefarious purpose (rejected as too stupid to contemplate, though Naruto pointed out that this whole situation was stupid) and just maybe Naruto being a girl in disguise all these years (also rejected, Sakura having seen him naked on one unfortunate beach vacation after his bathing suit fell off while body surfing).

It was then that Naruto had to rush off to pee, and Tsunade put away her clipboard with a resigned shake of her head. "I have no idea, Sakura."

Sakura nodded understandingly. "I know. I don't have any idea either." Then she sighed. "I just don't know how we're going to break this to Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei."

----

It turned out to be easier than anticipated. It was, after all, the day of their monthly Team Seven non-business get-together, and therefore they didn't need to actually go looking for their third and former teacher. It also helped that Naruto had no modesty to speak of, and the first thing he said after the two other members of Team Seven sat down at the regular restaurant to order dinner was, "I'm pregnant."

At that, Kakashi ordered some beef yakisoba. Sasuke, who had returned to Konoha (willingly, as it happened) six months ago due to the strange combination of the healing powers of a great deal of sex and Itachi falling down a well, choked while trying to swallow some water and ended up getting their table wet. Sakura ended up ordering for him, as the Uchiha was still sputtering five minutes later. "What… how…"

"Don't know," Naruto stated matter-of-factly, and dug into his ramen. It was with his mouth still full that he mumbled, "But the worst part is that Tsunade no baa-chan says I can't do anything but D-rank missions until the kid pops out. Too dangerous or something. The next couple of months are going to be boring as hell."

"Not pops out," Sakura corrected. "More like evicted against its will. You don't have a vagina, so we'll have to do a C-section."

Naruto blinked. "What's that?"

"We cut open your stomach, pull the baby out, and sew you back up."

Naruto stared at her, looking slightly disbelieving. It was in usual Naruto fashion that he processed it, accepted it, and went back to his ramen.

Sasuke thought about this, though he avoided examining the part about the C-section too much. "Is it mine?"

Naruto shrugged. Sakura, as the only reigning medical expert at the table, gave it some thought. "Well, statistically speaking, there is about a .01 percent chance of it being yours, a .001 chance of it being someone else's, and a 99.989 percent chance of it being just a clone of Naruto."

Kakashi, who hadn't shown much of reaction up until then, looked at Sakura over the top of his steaming yakisoba curiously. "And where are you getting these statistics, Sakura?"

"Made them up on the spot."

Kakashi nodded in understanding. "Ah."

There was a glum silence at the table. Sakura, also the reigning expert on being optimistic now that Naruto's mouth was otherwise occupied (he was already on his second bowl of ramen), smiled cheerily. "Well, we already went through several options with Tsunade-sama, but that doesn't mean we can't do some brainstorming ourselves. Tsunade-sama estimated that Naruto is about three weeks pregnant, so we just have to think of something weird that might have happened three weeks ago."

A thoughtful silence came over the small gathering. Sasuke, who was feeling a bit glum that his hopes of resurrecting the Uchiha Clan- while still managing to have absolutely no sexual contact with a woman whatsoever- had been so cruelly dashed (sort of), brooded for the first few minutes of the brainstorming and wasn't much help. In the end it was Naruto who started running through their old itinerary. "Well, we were on that mission to Tea Country… um…"

"There were those few minutes that you were separated from the rest of us," Sakura added helpfully. "Did anything strange happen then?"

Naruto thought about it. "Well… my opponent did try to use a jutsu on me, but it didn't seem to work and I took him down like two seconds later so…"

That sounded promising. Sasuke, who suddenly felt invested in this, asked, "What was the jutsu?"

Naruto shrugged. "Didn't hear the name of the jutsu, but afterwards he did this lame laugh and screamed like a little girl, 'Now you are cursed to suffer as no man has ever suffered before! The one closest to you will be the cause of your suffering, and it will last for three seasons and maybe a little more if you're unlucky! Ahahahaha!' and then some other shit, but after that he ran into an explosion note trap I'd set up earlier and nothing happened, so I kind of forgot about it."

Now there were three people staring at him. By mutual (and silent) consensus it was Sakura as the closest who reached over and slapped Naruto upside the head. "You idiot, the jutsu that guy used on you must have made you pregnant! 'Now you are cursed to suffer as no _man_ has ever suffered before,' yeah, but that just means you're going to suffer like a woman!"

Naruto stared at the ceiling and thought about it. Then he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, guess you're right. But I wonder what that stuff about 'the one closest to me' was about?"

Sasuke smiled slowly. "Well, as your teammate and lover obviously he was referring to me. Guess you are holding the heir to the Uchiha Clan inside you after all."

Sakura shook her head. "I don't think so, Sasuke-kun. 'Now you are cursed to suffer as no man has ever suffered before' was meant literally. I think the second part has to be literal too."

More silence overcame them. Kakashi, who had finished off his yakisoba while no one had been looking, yawned. "This is very interesting, but I have to get going. I have another mission in the morning and-"

It was then that Sakura slammed her fist on the table in triumph. The table cracked neatly in half, though everyone ignored the phenomenon. It had, after all, already happened five times in the past month. "I've got it! 'The one closest to you' has to be the one closest to you physically! Naruto, who touched you first after that fight?"

Naruto stared at the ceiling some more in thought. "Well… you screamed at me a bit about wandering off and Sasuke called me a moron, then Kakashi-sensei slapped me upside the head like you just did, Sakura-chan, then-" He froze. So did everyone else.

As one, they all turned to stare at Kakashi. Kakashi stared back. "Um…"

Sasuke's face twitched into a scowl. "You've _got _to be kidding me."

Naruto's eye twitched. "Sakura-chan, you're telling me that I'm pregnant with _Kakashi-sensei's _kid?"

Sakura shook her head slowly, but this time it was more in denial of what she knew to be true instead of 'no.' "I… I think we should go talk to Tsunade-sama about this."

Kakashi nodded agreeably in the fashion of a man who was volunteering someone else to go out into the minefield. "Yeah, you do that, but I really have to go."

It was with unusual poise and precision that Naruto reached out with his foot and hooked his former teacher's ankles, sending him crashing towards the floor. He then grabbed Kakashi by his chuunin vest and hauled him to his knees. "You fathered my kid, you're coming to my fucking doctor's appointment."

Kakashi thought about it. Saw the glint of red in Naruto's eyes. Made a decision. "Of course I will. Just as soon as you let go of my vest."

Naruto let go of Kakashi's vest. Then he went to the bathroom to pee for the twenty-seventh time that day.

----

Tsunade was, as usual, doing paperwork. However, despite the fact that they were interrupting, she didn't seem to mind at all. Seemed positively gleeful, in fact, and kept muttering something about dropping matches accidentally on her desk and 'forgetting' to put them out.

However, she quickly got down to business. "There isn't any way to tell at this point if Kakashi is the father, but by the sound of it he is the most likely option." She laced her fingers together in what Sakura had come to recognize as her teacher's 'let's figure this shit out so I can go back to drinking while pretending to do work' pose. "Now that we've located the other parent, I think it's time we sorted out this kid's future."

Naruto and Sakura nodded resolutely. Sasuke was too busy staring at the floor in despair (for good reason, for once. His lover, after all, had just gotten pregnant with someone else's child) to pay attention, and Kakashi was otherwise occupied, wondering as he was how after years of getting drunk and falling into random peoples' beds, it had in the end taken slapping his male student upside the head once to find himself saddled with an unwanted brat.

Tsunade raised a finger. "First of all, Naruto is only seventeen. By shinobi laws that makes him an adult, but I still don't think that an unmarried teenager makes the best choice for raising a child."

Sasuke scowled at her. "If that's the only problem, I'll marry Naruto and claim the child as my own."

Naruto nodded in agreement. "Yeah!" Then he thought about it. "Wait, what?"

Tsunade sighed. "Noble, Sasuke, but you and Naruto have only been involved for six months. Besides that, statistics show that teenagers that marry solely to make sure their child isn't a bastard are ten times more likely to be unhappy and divorce within five years."

Sasuke looked at her skeptically. "Where are you getting those statistics?"

Tsunade shrugged. "Made them up on the spot, but they're accurate as far as it goes. It's never smart to marry for external reasons instead of just because you want to. Besides that, teenagers rarely make good parents."

Naruto's scowl, if anything, looked more petulant than his teammate's. "You telling me I can't raise my own kid?"

Tsunade stared at him. "Naruto, imagine if you will, diapers. Thousands of them. All filled to the brim with feces."

"What's feces?"

Sakura sighed. "It's crap, Naruto."

"Oh. Okay then. Now what?"

Tsunade steepled her fingers. "Now imagine, if you will, dealing with those thousands of diapers for the next two years."

"Um… I could handle that."

"Also getting up at three in the morning to stop a kid crying, only to have no idea what's wrong with it. For the next two years."

"I don't have to sleep that much."

"Imagine not going on missions for the next six years, until your kid enters the academy."

At that, Naruto paled slightly, but he swallowed anyway and said resolutely, "No problem."

"Now imagine not having sex for the next six years, because you can't work and Sasuke has to be on missions all the time just to support you and pay for the child, since all his assets were confiscated when he defected to Orochimaru. You will never see him, and chances are he will leave you," Sasuke bristled at this, "and then you will have to give the child up anyway, because without any money you will be evicted from your apartment and not be able to pay for food, and be judged unworthy by child welfare to have anything to do with your child. Then you will never see it again. Ever."

Naruto's eyes widened, then turned down towards the floor. When he spoke next, his words were hushed. "Even if I do give the kid up, no one's going to want it, Granny. Not with me being a demon and it being a bastard and shit."

At that, Tsunade relented. "I've only done some preliminary checks, so I can't be sure, but I believe that your child will be one hundred percent human. The Kyuubi is attached to your chakra, not your DNA, so none of its characteristics can be passed on." Then Tsunade grinned. "Besides that, I already have the perfect couple in mind to take care of your child." It was then she turned to Kakashi. Her grin now had a distinctly evil edge. "Kakashi. You've been living with Gai for the past five years, haven't you?"

Kakashi hadn't been paying the least attention to anything that had been said over the past half an hour, but the tone of the Godaime Hokage's voice instantly alerted him that he was very possibly in deep shit. So it was with the utmost caution that he replied, "Yes. He moved in with me after the Sound/Sand invasion when his apartment was destroyed. So?"

"So you've been in a stable relationship with him all that time?"

Kakashi's one visible eye widened as he suddenly realized where this was going. "Now wait a second, just because we're living together doesn't mean we're involved."

Tsunade nodded thoughtfully at this. "That is true. I might even believe it if Sakura hadn't told me she saw you two making out in the forest last year while she was out collecting herbs for me."

Kakashi turned to stare at his female student, who just shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei, but I was traumatized. I had to tell somebody about it."

It was now Kakashi's two male students who were staring at him. In the end it was Naruto who sputtered out, "Kakashi-sensei… and fuzzy eyebrows-sensei… doing each other?"

Sasuke was shaking his head slowly. "The worst part is… is that I can see it. And it _burns_."

Kakashi threw his hands up in the air. "Alright, that's enough. I get it. Stop it."

Naruto was still sputtering. "Such big eyebrows… almost… alive. Kakashi-sensei… why… why?"

Even though it theoretically wasn't possible to leer with only one-fourth of one's face visible, somehow Kakashi managed to pull it off. "Three words: Perfect. Muscle. Control."

Naruto turned green. Then he rushed off down the hall. Kakashi watched him go, looking puzzled. "I didn't think it was bad enough that he'd need to puke about it."

Sakura sighed. "It's not that, Kakashi-sensei. Naruto just needs to pee again. It's been almost an hour since he last went."

"Oh."

Tsunade was rubbing her face tiredly. "If we're quite done with that… Kakashi, you really are the ideal choice to take care of the child. Not only are you one of the biological parents, you are of mature age and in a teaching position, as you are taking on another genin team in the fall, so you are in relatively little danger of dying before your child is old enough to attend the academy."

Kakashi frowned. "I don't remember agreeing to teach another passel of brats."

Tsunade gave him a pointed look. "I know you didn't."

There was a split-second of incomprehension before Kakashi nodded in understanding. "Ah."

"Furthermore," Tsunade continued, "You are in a stable relationship with another person, and children with two parents are much more likely to turn out to be productive members of the community- a.k.a. not turn missing-nin- than a child with only one parent."

"Maybe so," Kakashi conceded, "But you're forgetting something."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "And that would be?"

"Gai. You think he's going to take it well if I told him that I got another guy pregnant and that we have to adopt the kid? I mean, really. It's a bit of a shocker, isn't it?"

----

The answer turned out to be yes on both counts. Yes, it was a shocker (Gai nearly fainted when he first heard it), and yes, he took it well. Exceedingly well, really. Considering it was nearly one o'clock in the morning when they (they being Tsunade and the whole of Team Seven, as Naruto had returned from the bathroom by then) finally made it over to Kakashi and Gai's apartment and that they had woken the taijutsu user up in the middle of his REM cycle, it was more like inhumanly well.

Most men, for instance, wouldn't hug (in a manly fashion, mind you) the person their lover had just knocked up, then kiss them on top of the head and tell them they would treat the child as their own. Most men wouldn't then do a little dance with their lover (somewhat involuntarily on Kakashi's part, but despite having just woken up Gai was a lot more alert than Kakashi was and had no problem manhandling the copy-nin into doing a little jig) and start babbling about baby formula.

Most men's protégés, who was staying the night on the couch after a long day of training and who had just found out his mentor's lover had gotten another man pregnant, wouldn't finally awaken at that moment and volunteer to baby-sit on a regular basis. Most men and their protégés wouldn't then hug and somehow manage to make the sun rise behind them dramatically, despite it being one o'clock in the morning.

"You know," Sakura said conversationally as she watched Gai wonder what time the library opened so he could check out baby care books and in the same breath tell Naruto he was going to be his birthing coach and he wouldn't take no for an answer, "I heard somewhere that the reason two men weren't fit to raise a child is that it'd grow up emotionally stunted, but somehow… I kind of doubt that's going to be much of an issue."

Sasuke was too busy checking out the musculature on Gai's bare back (who habitually slept only in pants) and thinking that maybe imagining his teacher and Gai in bed together wouldn't be such the nightmare he thought it would be to answer, but Kakashi nodded. "Never even occurred to me it'd be a problem, really." Then he sighed. "I wonder if this is how it always happens. One day you're childless and carefree, the next you're wondering how the hell you're going to fit a crib through the door of your apartment and where you're going to hide your porn once the kid gets old enough to go looking for it."

"Pretty much," said Tsunade absently as she observed Lee burst out crying and announce he always wanted to be an uncle and that he would be the best one ever or hop around Konoha two thousand times on one foot. "Though usually it's-"

"Fine, fuzzy eyebrows-sensei, you can have my kid, but I want it to be an open adoption. No way any Uzumaki will ever grow up not knowing the joys of ramen!"

"Very well, Naruto-kun. You may see your child as often as possible, and that is a promise, or I will throw myself on a katana!"

"Yay, Gai-sensei! You're the best!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

Much sparkles resulted.

Tsunade sighed. "Never mind. This is nothing like normal." She turned around. "I'm going to go drink myself into unconsciousness. See you later, Sakura."

Sakura blinked. "But Tsunade-sama, what about Naruto?"

"I'm appointing you his obstetrician." Tsunade gave a half-wave over one shoulder. "Good luck with that."

"But Tsunade-sama!"

Sakura's protests didn't fall so much upon deaf ears as it did on ears too far away to hear anything, as Tsunade had made a shinobi-type exit as soon as she had left the apartment and was long gone, leaving Sakura with one hand stretched out and wondering what the hell she was supposed to do now.

Behind her, Kakashi was rubbing the back of his head and sighing. "I made it to thirty-one without a kid, and now… ah well. Could be worse, somehow."

Behind him, Naruto was asking Gai where the bathroom was, as he needed to pee again. Gai's instructions were enthusiastic enough that one could only hope they didn't wake up half the neighborhood.

"I don't know how things could be worse, but I'm sure they could be."

Beside him, Sasuke nodded. He was over the fact that Naruto wasn't going to give birth to the heir of the Uchiha Clan (sort of), and just then had resigned himself to nursing Naruto through another eight months or so of pregnancy, then finding out what jutsu the man had used to get the blond pregnant to begin with. With force, if necessary. He still had to resurrect his clan, after all. "You could have knocked Naruto up by actually having sex with him."

Kakashi blinked slowly. "I don't know about that. Having sex is the best part of the whole process, in my opinion. And Naruto's a good-looking young man. Wouldn't exactly be a hardship."

"But if you had, I'd have to kill you."

Kakashi thought about it. "Good point. It'd take me months to get the bloodstains out of my carpet."

Sasuke nodded smugly. "Yeah." Then he thought about it. "Wait. What?"

"Never mind, Sasuke. Never mind."


	2. First Trimester

Author's Note: Chapter two of five.

"Hurk!"

Inadvertently, Sasuke found himself wishing that Naruto had longer hair. Then at least he would be able to help hold it back while Naruto regurgitated the contents of his stomach into the toilet, instead of standing by feeling ineffectual.

It hadn't even been that rich of a breakfast. Pancakes with blueberry jam, scrambled eggs, a glass of milk (that on Sakura's order; apparently calcium was a necessary ingredient to keep the kid from coming out messed up. Well, any more messed up than it already would be from having two men as parents and one of them being Naruto). Sasuke didn't particularly like to cook, but this was the first day in over a week he was home in the morning (missions that paid well tended to be time-consuming) and wanted to make something of it.

Watching Naruto puke their meal back up ten minutes after it had been consumed wasn't the romantic interlude he had imagined.

"You sure there isn't something we can give him?"

Sakura shook her head. She had arrived at their apartment (formally Naruto's apartment, but Sasuke had insisted on moving in after the whole pregnancy debacle to make sure Naruto ate properly) just a few minutes after Naruto had rushed to the bathroom, with a month's supply of prenatal vitamins and instructions to take them every twenty-four hours, but had ended up sticking around. Why, Sasuke didn't know. It wasn't like she was being much help.

"Sorry, Sasuke-kun, but this just has to be ridden out. Morning sickness is very common in the second month of pregnancy."

Sasuke glanced away from the (not exactly riveting) sight of Naruto with his head positioned over the toilet to look at his female teammate hopefully. "So this will only go on a few more weeks?"

Sakura shrugged. "It depends. Probably. Unfortunately, for some women-"

"Naruto's a guy, Sakura."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "No, really? But in any case, sometimes it lasts throughout the entire pregnancy. It varies on the person."

Sasuke's face twitched back into a scowl. "Naruto doesn't have the same hormones as a woman. Why is he getting the same symptoms?"

"I asked Tsunade-sama about that-"

"And?"

"And she doesn't really know, but her best guess is that the jutsu that man used on Naruto is altering Naruto's physical makeup just enough to create a baby. Nothing extra, we think, which is why he hasn't gotten breasts or a vagina. He's still a guy. Just a guy with a uterus and some female hormones, which are probably what is causing the morning sickness."

In the bathroom, Naruto raised his head just enough to pronounce, "And thank God for that. I don't think I could deal with tits or having to pee sitting down on top of the rest of this shit… hurk!" In practical terms, Naruto didn't really have much left to eject from his stomach, but his body was doing its damndest anyway to try and force him to toss his spleen.

Sakura looked over at Naruto in concern. "Naruto… I've looked over your list of missions and you have to go pull some weeds in a few hours, but if you're not feeling up to it I can get it reassigned to a genin team."

Wiping the back of his mouth with one hand, Naruto shook his head. "I'm fine. Ran out of stuff to puke five minutes ago, and I think my stomach's settling down. No way in hell I'm going to be completely dependent on Sasuke for the next eight months to pay for everything."

Sasuke scowled. "So that's why you're doing grunt work, you moron? I don't care. It's not like you're some girl who wants me to buy her a lot of useless clothes. The only added expense I have now compared to when I lived on my own is more food, and that's not all that expensive."

Sakura sent the Uchiha a pointed look. "Sasuke-kun, as good-looking and as occasionally sweet as you can be, sometimes I want to fall on my knees and thank the universe that you turned out to be gayer than a strawberry tart."

Sasuke stared at her blankly. "Meaning…"

Naruto pushed himself to his feet and walked over to them. "Meaning sometimes you act like a chauvinistic asshole. And I'm still doing the missions. You may not care, but I do. The future Hokage can never let go of his pride enough to let someone else pay the electric bill." He seated himself back down at the table in the kitchen and started spooning eggs onto his plate.

It was only while he was raising his fork to his mouth that he caught their incredulous stares. "What? I'm hungry. You don't expect me to pull weeds all afternoon on an empty stomach, do you?"

----

There were really only a few people Naruto cared to hear about his condition. His team, of course. Always them. Maybe the other members of his year along with Gai's former genin cell too, though with them it wasn't so much wanting them to hear about it as knowing it was inevitable and resigning himself to it.

Three of the people he wanted to talk to originally hadn't been in town the week he had discovered he was pregnant. Yamato and Sai were on an extended ANBU mission that neither of them would talk about and would continue to be for about another two months, and Iruka had been in Bird Country with his class at the academy teaching them about different terrains. But now he was back, and Naruto knew he had to tell him.

That didn't mean he would relish the experience.

As it always was when one of them had been absent for an extended period, they met up at the ramen stand. Naruto let Iruka tell him about the various misadventures the academy students had found themselves in over the two week field trip, nodding agreeably in all the right places, but all too soon Iruka noticed his uncharacteristic silence and asked the expected question.

"Naruto… you've been awfully quiet. Did something happen while I was gone?"

Naruto looked down at his empty ramen bowl. Distantly he was pleased that he felt no urge to flee to the bathroom (as he had for once had the foresight to pee before dinner), but it was small consolation now. "Iruka-sensei…" There really was no good way to put this. With Kakashi and Sasuke, it hadn't mattered, because they expected weird shit to happen to him, often _because _of him. But with Iruka… Iruka expected good things, and that one disappointed look he had made Naruto want to sink into the floor. Naruto really, really didn't want to deal with that look.

But still, it had to be said. "Iruka-sensei, I'm pregnant."

Iruka stared at him. Blinked once. Then he stuck a finger in one ear and moved it around a bit. "Naruto, I'm sorry, I still must have some mud in my ears from when Hanabi and Hoshiko dripped mud in them while I was asleep. Say again?"

"I'm pregnant."

Iruka's chopsticks snapped in his hand. "That's… what I thought you said." He took a deep breath. Let it out. "I'm not going to ask how it happened. I don't think I want to know. Just tell me the date of the wedding."

Naruto looked quizzically at his former teacher. "Wedding? What wedding? I'm pregnant, Iruka-sensei, not engaged."

Iruka's eyes narrowed. When he next spoke, his voice was dangerously low. "You're telling me Sasuke gets you pregnant and isn't even enough of a gentleman to propose? I know he must have learned some awful habits while in Sound, but to have your child be born to a single parent household is the most reprehensible-" By the time he got to _your child_, the chuunin teacher was nearly shouting. His face was also becoming an alarming shade of red, and Naruto was fairly sure that if the chopsticks hadn't already been broken and dropped on the ground, they'd have just been made into very fine sawdust.

"Iruka-sensei, Sasuke _did _propose. I turned him down."

At that, Iruka abruptly cut himself off halfway through his tirade (thankfully. Everyone on the street was staring now and Naruto certainly didn't want _them _to hear this) and stared at Naruto. His eyes were disbelieving. "What? Why?"

It really was too late to weasel out, but for a split second Naruto was tempted to say, "Because I don't love him." It may or may not have been a lie (they were both guys, after all. Since when did love have anything to do with good sex and pancakes?), but at least it would have stalled a little. But though Naruto was a lot of things, many of them bad, he wasn't a coward. So it was with a deep breath that he announced, "Because the kid isn't his."

A myriad of emotions ran across Iruka's face at that moment. The floor-sinking disappointment made more than one appearance. "Then whose-"

"Kakashi-sensei's. But it isn't what you think. We didn't really do anything-"

Iruka's mouth had dropped open at the first word, and even though Naruto did his best to explain as fast as was humanly possible, somehow he knew that his former teacher's mind had shut down long before he got to the important part of the explanation.

"… so you see, it wasn't really Kakashi-sensei's fault at all-" Not looking at him, Iruka shoved himself to his feet and started walking away. "Iruka-sensei, listen-"

Iruka's back was to him now. His tone was conversational and calm in the exact way he had always sounded back during Naruto's academy days just before exploding about whatever ridiculous prank Naruto had pulled this week. "Just wait here, Naruto. I'll be back with Kakashi's head on a pike soon, and then we can finish our conversation." The explosion built. "To think that he would take advantage of you like that… with the age gap it's practically rape-"

Naruto threw his hands up in the air. "Weren't you listening at all? It's because of a jutsu, Iruka-sensei. Some idiot about a month ago put a jutsu on me that the first person who touched me would impregnate me. We didn't have sex. I didn't cheat on Sasuke. You think we'd still be together if I had?"

Iruka turned back around. He blinked. Then his face turned a very different shade of red from the near-purple he had been before. "Oh." He sat back down. "Sorry."

Naruto shrugged. "S'okay."

There was an awkward silence.

"So… when's the baby due?"

"Don't know. C-section, since I don't have a vagina."

Iruka winced. "That's too bad." Then there was more silence. "You know, Naruto… once the baby is born I'll be more than willing to baby-sit a few nights a week so you and Sasuke can have some alone time."

Naruto smiled. It wasn't a very good smile. "Kakashi-sensei and fuzzy eyebrows-sensei are adopting it once it comes out. I won't be taking care of it. Tsunade no baa-chan says I'm not ready for a kid yet, and she's right. I think."

Iruka's face twisted in sympathy. "Oh, Naruto… I'm so sorry."

Naruto felt his false smile begin to strain around the edges. "Fuzzy eyebrows-sensei says I can visit whenever, so… it'll be okay. Really, it will be."

The hug Iruka then gave him was stilted. Naruto didn't mind. Iruka wasn't really a touchy-feely kind of person, and any kind of hug was enough. After all, Iruka never hugged if he didn't mean it. "I can still help until it's born. I can do that much for my favorite former student."

That was enough to make Naruto's smile actually feel natural on his face. "Yeah. Thanks, Iruka-sensei. That'd be great." He returned the hug. "That'd be… really, really great."

The hug lasted a good thirty seconds. It might have gone on longer, but it was then that Naruto discovered that morning sickness was, unfortunately, not only limited to the mornings in the most sudden way possible by puking half-digested ramen all over Iruka's chuunin vest.

Iruka was nice about it, but still… damn it was embarrassing. And here everything had been going so nicely, too.

----

Naruto didn't see Sasuke for three days after meeting with Iruka (the Uchiha was busy with some B-class escort mission or other that was doomed, according to Sasuke, to be boring as hell but had a nice fat paycheck attached to it), and was only coming back to their apartment one evening after going to the grocery store to see Sasuke's sandals by the door. The water was running in the bathroom and a pile of dirty clothes was on the floor. Naruto stared irritably at the bag- they had a laundry basket, for fuck's sake, was it that hard to use? He wasn't that neat of a person, but even he had some standards- before sighing and getting out a pot to boil some water in to make ramen. Sasuke didn't like to cook, but Naruto like to less, so whenever it was his turn, ramen it was.

Sasuke got out of the shower ten minutes later to find a bowl of ramen steaming on the kitchen table and Naruto drinking a glass of milk on the couch, thinking all the while of how drunk he was going to get as soon as the baby was out. Naruto didn't even bother to look over as he said, "You said you'd be back this morning, you jackass."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Like it matters." He eyed the bags of groceries that lay unpacked on the kitchen counter. "Where'd you get the cash for those?"

Naruto snorted. "I pulled a cat out of the tree yesterday for some daimyo's daughter. D-ranked mission pay is shitty, but I can still buy food for a few days."

Sasuke started going through the bags. "Most of it's ramen."

"That's what I eat."

Sasuke slammed one of the ramen containers on the countertop with enough force to make the wood shudder. "You aren't eating for just yourself anymore, Naruto. You _can't_ eat ramen all the time."

Naruto knocked back the last of the milk. "Oh, fuck you. It isn't like it's your kid I might be screwing up for life."

Sasuke sneered. "No, it's not, but do you really think Kakashi will want it if it comes out deformed? He's being nice enough as it is, but that would really push it. Even Gai won't be willing to take it if it's defective."

On the couch, Naruto was still. Then he threw the empty glass against the wall, where it shattered into several hundred little pieces. The sight was made especially impressive by the fact the glass was made of plastic, which was, according to the manufacturer, incapable of shattering. His voice was shaking as he said, "If you don't like it, leave already. I don't want your help and I don't need it, so fuck you, Sasuke." When he got to the Uchiha's name, the blond chuunin's voice cracked alarmingly, and he started rubbing at his eyes.

Sasuke stared at his teammate, incredulous. "Are you _crying_?"

"I told you to fuck off!"

"You are." This was… well, Sasuke didn't know what it was. He'd never seen Naruto cry before, and it wasn't like this was even much of an argument. On their usual scale, it was a two or three at most. Naruto usually didn't start breaking things until a six, and the crying thing Sasuke was sure would require a nine or ten at least. It was therefore with extreme trepidation (for shit's sake, Naruto was more likely to summon the Kyuubi than cry, which meant the demon couldn't be far behind, and who knew what would set it off?) that he walked over to the couch and patted Naruto, who was by that point sobbing into his hands, roughly on the shoulder. "There, there. It will be alright." _Whatever the hell it is._

"Fuck." Even that word trembled. "Fuck, this sucks. I don't even know why I'm crying. This pregnancy thing really bites." He then, without further ado, whirled around and jumped on Sasuke with enough force to knock the Uchiha to the ground.

Sasuke blinked. He had hit his head and it hurt like a bitch, but with the way Naruto was nuzzling at his neck it was sort of hard to pay attention to his possible concussion. "Are we going to have comfort sex now?"

Naruto stopped nuzzling long enough to growl out, "Hell no. I've been horny for two days, but when you started acting like my mother I forgot about it."

Sasuke dug his fingers into Naruto's hair. "And now?"

"Now we're going to have sex. Rough, hard, 'I haven't seen you in five days and have had blue balls for two' fucking that will likely break furniture, if we're lucky."

Sasuke looked over his teammate carefully. Naruto wasn't one to cry gracefully, it seemed, with snot running out of his nose and his face puffy and eyes red, but the vulnerable look still managed to be somewhat fetching. "I'm topping."

At that, Naruto rubbed his crotch against Sasuke's thigh and bit at his throat. "Not a chance in hell, Sasuke."

"But you're acting like a girl."

Naruto snorted. "Like that makes a difference. I'd top you even if I was a girl. Now do you want to do it here and get rug burns or move to the couch?"

Sasuke thought about it. The couch would be hell to clean later… oh hell, who cared. Better that then having to soap the carpet again. "The couch, and don't you dare get off before we get there."

The grin the blond chuunin sent him then was pure Naruto, with no hint of a weepy girl at all even with the snot. And somehow- though Sasuke wasn't exactly sure how- that was about ten times hotter than the thought of making Naruto take it. At least that was what his hard-on was telling him.

Damn it, they'd better get to the couch _now_ or he was going to kill something.


	3. Second Trimester

Author's Note: Past the halfway mark.

Sai and Yamato took the news of Naruto's pregnancy much more calmly than Iruka had. In Yamato's case it was because he had a more calm personality overall, so therefore it was totally expected when all he said after Naruto had told him the story was a neutral, "That's… interesting Naruto."

Sai, on the other hand, took it well because that's the only way he knew how to take things. What he asked afterwards, however, managed to throw Naruto a bit for a loop. "Can I draw you?"

Naruto blinked. "Why would you want to do that?"

Sai's habitual smile widened. "Well, it isn't like I'll ever have the chance to have a pregnant man as my model again."

If the young ANBU had stopped there, Naruto might have agreed, but in typical Sai fashion he didn't know when to shut up. "And here I was thinking ugly was going to be the one to get all fat and bulgy. I guess I was right to be confused as to whether to you were a man when we first met after all, Naruto."

Sakura wasn't there, so it was on her behalf as well as his own that Naruto then punched Sai with enough force to knock him into the wall. "You'll get to draw me when hell freezes over, you ass." Then he slammed the door (for they were standing right outside Naruto's apartment) in the ANBU's face.

Sasuke walked out of the bathroom five seconds later with a toothbrush in hand and his face flecked with loam. "Who was that?"

"Sai. The fucker called Sakura-chan ugly and me a woman. Again."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "So I take it the thump I heard was you hitting him?"

"Damn right."

"Good." Then Sasuke grinned. Naruto didn't blame him. Sasuke never had gotten around to accepting Sai as an honorable member of Team Seven. Mostly because Sai had taken one look at him and announced that he had wondered if there was a guy in the world girly enough for Naruto to top, and how interesting it was to come across him so soon. If you are in fact a him, you are a man right, Sasuke-chan? It really is hard to tell.

It had taken the combined force of Kakashi and Yamato both to keep Sasuke from killing the artistic assassin. Sakura might have managed it alone, if she hadn't been cheering Sasuke on at the time. Naruto had been too busy laughing to be of help to anyone.

After Sasuke wandered back into the bathroom, there was a polite knock on the door. "Naruto? I'm sorry. I know how much it upsets people when I tell them the truth. I should have remembered that."

"Go fuck yourself, Sai."

"I already did that this morning." Then, conversationally, "You know, it really is much harder than you'd think to get one's fingers all the way to the prostate-"

Naruto covered his ears with his hands. He really, really should have known the ANBU would take him seriously, just to be a jackass about it. "Sai, shut up!"

"- but I suppose asking Yamato-senpai to assist wasn't the best choice to make. Oh well. See you later, Naruto!"

Sometimes, Naruto really, really wondered about his life. Somehow he doubted that everyone's friends were as outright insane as his.

----

"Sasuke?"

"Mf."

Sasuke did his best to roll over and go back to sleep, but Naruto's persistent shaking of his shoulder wouldn't let him. "Hey, tightwad, wake up."

Sasuke blearily opened his eyes. "What the fuck do want now, Naruto? It's three o'clock in the morning and I have a mission in five hours."

"I want some wasabi."

Sasuke rubbed at his eyes. "What for?"

Even though his eyesight was better than most, it was still hard for Sasuke to see in the dark, and he could only just make out his teammate's shrug. "I don't know. I just do. I woke up an hour ago and I can't stop thinking about it."

"We don't have any. Just get some tomorrow at the grocery store."

"I can't wait that long, you bastard. Sakura-chan has some, and you're the one with the key to her apartment."

Finally giving up on ever going back to sleep, Sasuke propped himself up on his elbows and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Let me get this straight. You want me to walk across town to Sakura's apartment and wake her up so you can eat some _wasabi_?"

"Well, you don't need to wake her up since you have the key."

"Do you honestly think she won't stab me if I try to sneak in? And she has a shift at the hospital tomorrow. She'll kill me if I get her out of bed."

"Please?"

"Not a chance in hell, Naruto."

It was fifteen minutes later Sasuke found himself standing outside Sakura's apartment, trying to convince himself that she wouldn't really kill him if he woke her up at this hour. It was with this not very firm conviction in mind that he rang the doorbell.

It took almost five minutes- during which he heard an inordinate amount of swearing, and Sasuke hadn't known that Sakura knew that much profanity- before his female teammate pulled open the door, wearing nothing but a bra and panties. "Do you have _any _idea what time it is?"

Sasuke stared. If he was straight, he was fairly sure he would be getting a nosebleed right now, but as it was, all he did was blush and mumble out, "Naruto wants some wasabi and sent me over to get some from you."

Sakura stared back at him, then visibly calmed down. "Oh, it's you, Sasuke-kun. Naruto sent you, did he? That makes sense. It's about time his cravings started." She turned around and walked back into her apartment, though she returned shortly with a small jar. "Here it is. Don't let him eat too much, though."

Sasuke looked down at the jar. "Why? Is it bad for the baby?"

Sakura shrugged. "Not really. It's just spicy as hell."

So in the end, Naruto got his wasabi. Not that the moron was properly thankful for it.

Four nights later…

"Hey, Sasuke?"

"What?"

"I want crab."

Sasuke covered his face with his pillow. "They don't serve crab in Fire Country, you idiot."

"Yeah, I thought about that, but the coast is only like a few days away if you're fast…"

And that was how Sasuke found himself back in Wave Country. Tazuna and his family were glad to see him again, but when Inari asked about Naruto, all Sasuke could do was shake his head and say, "You don't want to know. Trust me. You _really _don't want to know…"

----

One morning Sasuke slept in late (by shinobi standards; it was almost seven) and walked into the kitchen to catch sight of Naruto, dressed only in boxers, drinking milk out of the carton. "Naruto, you moron, do you have any idea how unsanitary that…" Sasuke trailed off.

Naruto had looked guilty as soon as Sasuke had made his appearance (the milk mustache made deniability somewhat implausible), but the guilty look became more confused as Sasuke continued to stare at him. "Sasuke? What is it?"

It was after a significant pause that Sasuke announced. "I think you're beginning to show."

Naruto blinked at his teammate. Then he rushed into the bathroom, milk cartoon still in hand.

There was a moment of silence, but the howl that soon followed more than made up for it, if only because Sasuke spent the rest of the morning apologizing to the neighbors for waking them up so early on the weekend.

Word among those in the know got around fast, and it was only the next day that while trying to fix the television, Naruto answered the door to find Hinata standing outside. "Hey, Hinata-chan! What's the occasion?"

Staring at the floor and blushing furiously, Hinata pulled something out from her messenger bag and handed it to him. "H-here, Naruto-kun. This is for you."

Naruto looked down at the clear glass container he now held in hand. "Thanks!" Then he realized he had no idea what he was thanking her for. "Uh, Hinata-chan… what is it?"

"I made it. It… helps pregnant woman- not that I think you're a woman, Naruto-kun- from having too many… um…" Hinata blushed again, and what she said next came out mumbled and indecipherable.

Naruto peered at her. "I'm sorry, Hinata-chan… what was that?"

She squeaked it out, then ran off to the end of the hall and down the stairs without even giving her customary goodbye. Naruto watched her go with incomprehension. "Stretch marks? What the hell are stretch marks?"

----

Kakashi liked having Gai around. He really did. He knew in many ways the taijutsu user balanced him out, overreacting in situations that Kakashi would hardly react to at all and taking things well that would shatter Kakashi's very soul. Two halves of a very weird couple, ying and yang of a relationship that found its origins in bizarro land, but still, they worked, and Kakashi wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Gai was also a tiger in bed, which wasn't, as any man would tell you who had been in more than one relationship, everything, but still was a hell of a lot.

Still, that didn't mean he understood his partner. Better than most, true, but most didn't understand him at all and habitually wrote the green-clad jounin off as a force of nature, so better than most wasn't exactly worth bragging about. Kakashi was therefore more than slightly flummoxed when he and Gai passed by a hair salon and Gai promptly burst out crying.

As anyone who knew Gai at all was aware, the taijutsu user cried loudly and incessantly, which occasionally could be embarrassing in public. Luckily there was an abandoned alley handy (why and how those originated with not perceivable purpose in mind Kakashi didn't know, but as he had often said before, gift horse, don't look), so Kakashi dragged Gai, who was still sobbing, there to wait out his crying jag. This took a while, long enough that Kakashi had already made it to chapter three of the newly released fifth book of the _Icha Icha Paradise _series and was getting somewhat invested into the plot when Gai, rubbing at his eyes with a handkerchief, said solemnly, "I apologize for that, Kakashi. It's just… when I saw that salon, I… I couldn't help but think."

Kakashi turned another page of his book. "Of?"

"Of our child."

That was the thing about Gai. While he was perfectly capable of living in the present, Gai was also something of a boy scout. Meaning he had been born with the motto clenched in one resolute fist. They had bought the crib two days after the pregnancy had been revealed, the little spinny thing above the crib Kakashi couldn't remember the name of the same day, and they had begun painting a week ago, despite Kakashi pointing out it was usually traditional to wait until the gender of the baby had been revealed. Gai had scoffed at this and said it didn't matter; the room would be painted green regardless. If Kakashi had had a favorite color, he might have protested at this, but as it was, he didn't, so he didn't care. So, green it was.

Along with all that (and the baby care classes Gai had signed up for and dragged Kakashi to three times a week), Gai was already speaking of the baby in the present tense, even though it wouldn't be born for five months. Which was, in Kakashi's opinion, kind of weird. It also, on some fundamental level, bothered him. He had been even less prepared for children than most, for he had been having sex with no one but men for almost a decade and the chances of getting one of them pregnant was… well, apparently greater than he had thought, but still abysmally low. And then one day, poof, he was a father. Kakashi was flexible, and he knew he would adjust to the idea in time, but he wished that Gai would at least give him a few months of speaking of the child as something that would happen as opposed to something that already had.

Not that this could ever be properly explained, so Kakashi didn't even try. "Why did a hair salon make you think of the kid?" Baby shops, he could understand. Ditto on passing small children in the street. But a hair salon?

"I was thinking… of the first bowl cut he would receive. And how absolutely darling it would look on him…"

Kakashi was flexible. That didn't mean he didn't have a snapping point. "Not a chance in hell, Gai. The kid's going to be a Hatake. Or maybe an Uzumaki. Either way his hair's going to be spiky, and that means no bowl cut."

Gai stared at him. He looked devastated. "Never?"

"Never. You already have one clone. Two'd really be pushing it."

Gai stared at him wide-eyed. For a moment Kakashi was afraid he was going to burst out crying again, but instead the taijutsu user started a rant (that by the second sentence already promised to be longwinded) listing the virtues of the bowl cut, among with were increased confidence and less wind resistance. Kakashi refuted them all, and it was only later that he realized that he'd referred to the kid as a Hatake. Meaning it was really his, and really was, instead of was going to be.

Crap. That meant he had to start taking the baby care classes seriously after all.


	4. Third Trimester

Author's Note: College kept me. Chapter four of five.

"Man… that feels good…"

Sasuke wasn't exactly sure how he had gotten roped into giving Naruto a massage. Alright, that was a complete lie. He knew exactly how he had gotten roped into this. It hadn't even taken much whining on Naruto's part.

One hour earlier…

"Shit!"

Sasuke, who up until that point had been dead asleep, was on his feet and had a kunai in hand before Naruto had even drawn a second breath. "What? What is it?"

Naruto didn't even seem to have heard him, clutching as he was at one of his calves (somewhat awkwardly; his expanding stomach made it more difficult than it would have been otherwise) and rocking back and forth, a steady stream of profanity issuing from his mouth. "Shit shit shit shit shit-"

Not sensing any danger (and profoundly irritated at having been woken up before it could even properly be called morning), Sasuke slipped the kunai back under his pillow (three years of serving under Orochimaru having finely honed his sense of paranoia) and sat back down on the bed. "What's wrong now, Naruto?"

Naruto stopped swearing just long enough to hiss out, "My legs are cramping up, and they hurt like a _bitch_… shit!"

Seeing as how Naruto hadn't exercised recently without stretching first and had stopped growing almost a year ago, Sasuke could only surmise this to be just another symptom of Naruto's… condition. Damn it. How did normal people put up with this?

Well, at least this particular problem had a solution. "I'll go get you some Tylenol."

It was through gritted teeth that Naruto replied. "Hurry. Hurry hurry hurry oh _fuck_ my legs are on _fire_-"

So Sasuke hurried, returning to the bedroom something less than two minutes later with two small tablets and a glass of water in hand, both of which Naruto downed immediately. Unfortunately, the labeling had made it obvious that the pain relief wouldn't go into effect for another half an hour at least, which was, judging by the sweat making Naruto's face glisten in the lamp lighting, thirty minutes too long.

So Sasuke thought. And thought. It was a little difficult, seeing as Naruto's swearing was steadily upping in volume, and in the end it was in desperation that he blurted out, "Would a massage help?"

Now…

Alright, so maybe it hadn't taken any whining on Naruto's part at all. Maybe Sasuke had volunteered because he was a good boyfriend, even at one o'clock in the morning when he had just gotten to bed two hours before.

… Maybe he was going a little soft. It wasn't like this was his kid. Kakashi should have been the one doing all this shit.

"Little lower… Sasuke…"

Sasuke moved his hands lower automatically, no longer really paying attention. Not that he wanted Kakashi's hands all over Naruto or anything. That would be disgusting. And besides, Kakashi was the one to have to deal with the brat after it popped out. It wasn't like Sasuke couldn't help out until then. Better to be pressing his fingers into Naruto's (still firm, despite everything) flesh for a few hours than dealing with diapers and baby formula for the next few years.

"God, I don't know why I didn't ask you to do this before…"

It was funny, though. The back of the Tylenol packaging had claimed it would kick in a lot sooner than this.

Wait a second.

"So, how long ago did the drugs kick in?"

Sasuke attempted to make the question casual, but through the haze of getting a massage, the wording still managed to penetrate Naruto's brain, and it was with a very deliberate squint that he returned Sasuke's gaze. "About twenty minutes ago. What? You're telling me you're just doing this to get rid of the cramps?"

Sasuke scowled. His hands stilled right below Naruto's left knee. "Why else would I be doing this, moron?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and foisted himself up onto his elbows. "Foreplay, you bastard. Duh."

"It's two in the morning. Why in hell would I want to have sex now?"

"Because neither of us have work tomorrow and you get horny at weird hours. And because I'm feeling a lot better and not tired at all. And because we haven't done it in weeks."

Sasuke snorted and rocked back on his heels. "You're huge, dumbass. I'm not going to have sex with a cow."

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "You're a grade-A fucker, you know that, Sasuke? Shit, I don't know how you'd expected to revive the Uchiha Clan. If you said that to a girl when she was pregnant, she'd never do it with you again, and if your first kid hadn't inherited your bloodline, where the hell would you be?"

"All of that is moot," Sasuke pointed out coldly, "Seeing as this isn't my child and you aren't female."

At that, Naruto's mouth tightened, and it was without prior warning that he hurled a pillow at Sasuke's head. Sasuke caught it easily enough, but wasn't so deft when Naruto tossed the sheet after it. "Naruto, what do you think you're doing?"

"I," Naruto announced, "Am going back to bed. You, on the other hand, are sleeping on the couch, and will continue to do so until the kid's out or you apologize. I'm not going to sleep next to a shit like you."

Sasuke looked down at the pillow in his hands incredulously. "You can't just make me move out to the living room."

"My name's on the lease. Technically I could get you kicked out of the apartment entirely, but I'm a better person than you are, so I won't." At that, Naruto rolled back over and covered himself with the blanket. "Now go away."

For a moment, Sasuke stared at the top of Naruto's head (the only part that was still visible). It didn't take long for his surprise to transform into an emotion he was far more familiar with. Resentment, to be more specific. "Fine. I don't care. It's not like I'm living here for my benefit anyway." He dropped the pillow and sheet on the ground and turned away. "Screw this, Naruto. I'm leaving. It will be amusing to see how you deal with this on your own. I'll be at Sakura's if you want to come crying to me."

At that, Sasuke strode out. Naruto hadn't bothered twisting around to watch him go.

Six hours later…

Naruto was fixing himself some breakfast (instant ramen, which he hadn't eaten for months, but it wasn't like Sasuke was around to yell at him about it), when someone knocked on the door. Curious at to who would come visit at this time of day (eight o'clock wasn't that early, really, but still), he answered it with instant ramen in hand. "Yeah, who is it… oh."

Standing there was Sasuke. Next to him was Sakura, smiling pleasantly but with an obviously iron grip on the Uchiha's shirt. "Naruto! Good morning. Sorry to bother you before you've eaten…" She gave the ramen a suspicious look, but let it pass without comment, "… Breakfast, but Sasuke-kun here has something to say to you."

Sakura turned to look at Sasuke expectantly. Naruto did the same, though with considerably more reluctance. Sasuke, on the other hand, wasn't looking at either of them, choosing instead to glower angrily at the floor.

Sakura quickly ran out of patience. It was in a suspiciously patient tone that Sakura scolded quietly, "Sasuke-kun… you just have to repeat to Naruto what you said to me earlier."

Sasuke's eyes didn't move from the floor. Sakura's smile became tighter. So did her grip on Sasuke's shirt, which was starting to give slightly at the seams. "Sasuke-kun…"

Sasuke, with his characteristic abruptness, chose then to speak. "I'm sorry, Naruto."

He then went silent. Sakura, in an obvious attempt to prompt him, said, "For…"

"For calling you a cow earlier."

Sakura's smile turned cheery again. "Alright then!" It was without further ado that she shoved Sasuke past Naruto into the apartment and gave them both a jaunty wave. "See you guys later!" The door closed less than two inches from Naruto's nose.

Naruto blinked. Then he turned around to face Sasuke, who had resumed glowering at the carpet. "Hey, Sasuke…"

Sasuke's eyes rose to stare at the package in Naruto's hand. "You're eating instant ramen for breakfast."

"Yeah."

Sasuke had always been just slightly faster than Naruto, and now he had the element of surprise. His hand shot out with enough speed that Naruto barely had time to yelp before Sasuke had the packet of instant ramen in his grip. Naruto didn't even get to reach out for it before Sasuke, with his usual uncanny accuracy, tossed the ramen over one shoulder and into the garbage.

Naruto couldn't help sputtering. "Hey…"

Sasuke turned his glower on him. "How many times have I told you that instant ramen is shit for you? You aren't eating that."

Naruto tried sputtering some more. Sasuke ignored him. "Now sit down. I'm going to make you some eggs and sausage and you're going to like it."

The fact that Naruto did like eggs and sausage was beside the point really, which was why Naruto didn't bother mentioning it as he returned Sasuke's glare. "The eggs had better be over easy."

Sasuke snorted, but he never did get around to saying otherwise.

----

"… and in the end, all it turned out to be was the stomach flu, can you believe it?"

It was, yet again, the day of their monthly Team Seven non-business get-together. This time, both Sai and Yamato were present, but unlike past months, no one had any particularly exciting stories to tell (except Kakashi, but whenever anyone asked him about the three mobiles stuck in the wall parallel to the door of his apartment's new nursery and the bloodstains on the carpet, all he would do was shake his head and say, "No. Just no. … no," which wasn't encouraging), so in the end it had been left to Sakura to try and keep the conversation flowing. Unfortunately, her patient stories were all, to say the least, boring, as no missions had failed spectacularly lately, so in the end she had been left to babble about colds and infections while Kakashi stared at the ceiling and Sai absently doodled disturbingly accurate sketches of bird entrails on the tablecloth. Yamato and Sasuke, on the other hand, were trying to listen politely, but their attempt at dodging Sakura's inevitable ire when she noticed no one was really paying attention failed when Naruto's head hit the table for the sixth time.

As it turned out, number six was the charm, as Sakura stopped halfway through yet another story about cancerous moles and glared at the blond shinobi. "Naruto! I know this isn't the most interesting conversation, but you don't have to pretend to fall asleep just to get me to stop!"

Naruto yawned and rubbed at his eyes. "Sorry, Sakura-chan. It's not you. I've just been so tired lately…"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "That's because you aren't sleeping at night, moron. Just stop napping during the day. You're keeping me up, too."

"Trouble sleeping during the last trimester is a common symptom of pregnancy," Sakura rattled off, her irritation forgotten as her medical training took over. "I recommend sleeping on your side with a pillow between your knees, Naruto. That should make it easier for you."

Naruto yawned again. "I'll try that tonight, Sakura-chan, but I doubt it'll work. Everything aches all the time now and it makes it hard. And I've started peeing all the time again, too."

"Well, it shouldn't be much longer now," Sakura consoled. Then she brightened. "Hey, this is your last month, isn't it?"

Naruto blinked. "Uh… yeah."

"Well," and it was here that the medic-nin's voice dropped as she leaned forward to whisper in Naruto's ear, "Normally we'd wait for the prospective mother's water to break before taking her to the hospital, but seeing as that won't happen to you, lacking a vagina and all, we could always take you in now. The baby would be due in a week or so anyway, so it should be fine."

Kakashi and Sai abruptly started paying attention, but it was Kakashi, with his one visible eye widened and his hands moving around in uncharacteristic urgency, that got the first say. "The kid's coming now? That's too soon! We haven't assembled the crib yet and I haven't gotten in enough practice with holding a baby and I'll probably kill it!"

Sai took a somewhat more positive tack that was nonetheless unappreciated. "Can I be present during the birth? I want to sketch it."

"No," was the unanimous answer before everyone turned back to the matter at hand.

Sakura, as the resident medical expert, did most of the talking. "Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei, you won't kill it. I've been informed by one of the other medic-nin that you've been very careful to attend all the baby care classes. You'll do fine. Naruto, you'll have to wait a day until we set everything up, so just come in tomorrow morning. Sasuke, it will probably be best for you to be present during the procedure. Naruto can hold your hand instead of breaking all the fingers of one of my assistants. No, Sai, you can't watch, and it's weird that you'd want to, though I should expect that from you by now. Yamato-senpai…" Yamato looked at her expectantly, "Um… you can keep Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sensei company in the waiting room. They'll need someone calm to reassure them, anyway."

Yamato nodded, a slight smile on his lips. "Got it. I'll be sure to confiscate all their weaponry. Wouldn't want them doing something foolish."

Sakura blinked. Sometimes Yamato had a very strange sense of humor. "… Right. Okay. Everyone got all that? Good."

And that was that. In Naruto's opinion, it was a little anticlimactic, but as Sasuke dryly pointed out to him, better uneventful than the alternative. Then they went out for dessert. The dango was excellent.


End file.
